Data Sharing and Archiving for Demographic Research

The Data Sharing for Demographic Research (DSDR) project of the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) supports population science and related fields by making it possible for researchers, policy makers and others to discover, access, and analyze relevant secondary data. Access to high-quality, generalizable data about populations facilitates scientific advancements at a pace that is not possible when researchers are limited to the data resources they produce themselves. Specifically, data that are findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable are critical to transparency and research reproducibility as well as making it feasible for scientists to combine data of different types and from different sources for a more nuanced understanding of the context of health outcomes and behaviors. DSDR provides the infrastructure for researchers to see the scope of available data; access both public- and restricted-use data while protecting human subjects; integrate emerging data types such as biomarkers, genomics, and administrative record data; and learn from others in the demographic community about the data and relevant analytic techniques.